Johnnycakes In Perspectiveuse
by Kayla Mae
Summary: Johnny dies and Ponyboy can't quite get over that fact. He has dreams, nightmares...


**Johnnycakes In Perspective**

"Get your butt back here you rotten piece of filth!" Johnny's father was drunk again, the same thing that happens every night.

He was tired of the constant screaming and beating that was waiting for him at home. Johnny never wanted to come back to that horrid place. He wanted to go play football so he could at least control what happened to him.

Johnny decided to go to the empty lot in Greaser territory to practice kicking around a football so he could calm down. He had trouble finding the ball though, he told me. He looked all over the place and never saw it.

Someone else had seen Johnny though. The Socs. They saw Johnny. He was all by himself, the one thing a Greaser in the middle of the night should never be. They had found him.

"Hey there, you Greaser! What kind of trouble are you getting into tonight? Rob any good stores lately?" The Socs were taunting him. They didn't trouble Johnny too easily. He was scare of them, sure, but he didn't show it.

"Why aren't you on your own turf? You don't belong here." Johnny was taking a huge risk talking back to them like that. He was really askin' for it.

"Oh, trying to be a tough guy now, huh? Well, it's our job to fix that now isn't it boys?" Johnny was now officially petrified, but still remained calm, until Bob plunged for him.

Johnny tried so hard to get away. His odds weren't going to be good from the start and he knew that. The reality of it all was just starting to sink in, as the first of many gashes tore up his flesh.

It was a good thing we were walking by that night or I don't think Johnny would have made it past all those gaping holes in his skin. He was beat up real bad.

We were all so scared for him. _Johnny could die._ That was the thought that was crossing all of our minds. We knew what could happen. We had all been taught to deal with it since we lived on the East Side. We never thought we would need to though.

We brought Johnnycakes to the hospital as soon as Darry could get our car. Once we got there all of the nurses and doctors turned all attention to Johnny. He was the most critical ER patient of the night, the only one that could die.

* * *

Johnny spent almost two weeks in the hospital. He was still in critical condition when he got out. He wasn't only physically scarred for life, but emotionally also. He was so different now. Johnnycake looked so scared all of the time. I don't think you could tell if you didn't know him, but we knew him, we could see it.

There was so much Johnny didn't tell me at first. He was hurting, I could tell, but he wouldn't say what was bothering him. I didn't expect him to, but I wanted to know and I wondered if he wanted to get something off his chest or something the way he kept moving his mouth but not saying anything. It looked like he had something on his mind.

He was so beat up for weeks. Johnny stayed at Darry's and Soda's and my house on account of his parents were always drunk and beating him and didn't give a rat's pa-tooty where he was or if he was even alive. I think he liked staying at our house. Everyone liked staying at our house. We didn't have much to offer, but it was a good place for our buddies to cool off, so our door was always open.

Johnny had to sleep in me and Soda's bed 'cause he couldn't sleep on the couch. So Soda slept on the floor and I slept on the couch cause Sodapop didn't really want to. I don't know why Soda never wanted to sleep on the couch. I guess he just never felt like it.

Johnny stayed at our house for two weeks after he got out of the hospital so his scrapes and what-not could heal properly before is no-good "father" beat 'em open again. He had it so rough at home. I think he was glad to be able to stay with us.

* * *

Once he got better and could walk good on his own, Johnny had to go back to his house where he was sure a good beatin' was awaiting him. His father never was much in the favor of using his words to express his feelings. Johnny was right. His dad was so mad at him that with all of the pain he was already in, I was surprised he could walk when his father was done with him. Johnny's pop never did make life very easy for him.

We saw Johnnycake the day after his beating and he looked so much worse than he did after he was jumped. I reckon his father wasn't too happy about medical bills and all that stuff. Those can get pretty high in just a short while.

Me and Johnny decided to go to a movie that night to get his mind off all of the things that were going on right then. We saw Jaws. That was a really great movie. I don't think Johnny liked the movie very well though. It might have been too much pain and the fact that he knew what the pain felt like. He probably won't want to see that movie again. It was too soon for him to be thinking about pain. We shouldn't have gone.

So we decided to leave the theatre and walk down the street and maybe go to the park and look at the stars. We both liked to look at the stars. They just seemed so intriguing to us: glowing and basking in their own light. Stars relaxed us. No one else in the gang liked to look at stars. They thought stargazing was for sissies; only girls and wimps did that.

We stopped at the corner of Fourth and Main Street, the Jefferson Park. They always have nice benches there and we were tired and needed to rest. We both lie down and almost immediately fell asleep we were so exhausted. Johnny and I could have slept for hours if it hadn't been for that stupid car, blue Mustang, driving around the park all night. They got out of the car and started walking towards us. We were both scared out of our minds.

"Well, look what we got here. It seems we have a couple of lonely greasers looking for some company." That was Bob, always looking to pick a fight, especially when he got drunk. "Randy, I think they would go for some one to be with."

We were really in for it. Johnny and I both knew we wouldn't have very much luck facing them ourselves and we sure as heck couldn't call for help. We were completely jimmy-jacked.

"No, I think we can manage to find our own company for the evening, thank you very much." Johnny was trying to be so brave, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He was beginning to turn pale, white as a ghost. I was just as scared; I could feel my ears getting hot and tingly. This wasn't going to turn out good for us.

Luckily, Johnny had a knife with him. He was sure scared to use it, but he would if he had to.

"Let's see if they want to do a little dance in the dark and see if their loneliness is cured." They were really itching for a fight and they were gonna get one.

Johnny pulled out his blade and swiftly moved towards…

"Ponyboy! Ponyboy! Wake up!" Apparently I was sleeping for a real long time. Darry was scared I had gone into a coma.

"What? Oh, I'm up; I'm up. Jeepers Darry, shake me hard enough?" I have been having that reoccurring nightmare ever since Johnny died. It's been really hard on all of us not having him here with us. He's usually so involved with our lives. I just missed him a lot. That was all. There wasn't anything wrong with me; I just missed my Johnnycakes.


End file.
